The present invention relates to a ting binder having a paper punch mechanism, and particularly to a ting binder having a paper punch mechanism with punching rods, aligned with ring members, placed within a spring plate housing having said ring members for binding paper sheets, wherein the paper path mechanism can punch holes in paper sheets inserted into a gap formed in a lower side of the spring plate housing.
In general, a ting binder has the construction of a ting member fixed to a spring plate, the spring plate is housed within a housing, and the housing is fixed on an inside surface of a spline of a binder cover. In most cases, the ting binder has two or three ring members and the paper sheets are bound in the ring members through the punched holes of the numbers corresponding to the ring members.
Conventional ring binders are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,522,526, 4,573,822, 4,582,442, 4,690,580 and 4,722,628, an in other references. In using the ring binder, every hole aligned with the ring member must be punched through the paper sheets in advance. To punch such a hole, a separate punch mechanism is necessary.
In order to overcome the problem of having a punch mechanism separate from a ring binder the following U.S. patents disclose different embodiments of a combination of loose leaf binder rings and paper punch mechanism.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,139,159 by C. B. Hammon entitled Loose Leaf Binder, a loose leaf binder is disclosed as having an apparatus with hinged upper and lower plates wherein the upper plate includes hole punches and is raised and lowered to punch holes through a sheet of paper. The hole punches are aligned with the rings in the binder mechanism.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,749,297 by Norman L. Roy entitled Loose-Leaf Binder And Paper-Punch Combination, a loose leaf binder and paper punch combination has an opening in a lower portion thereof to allow for the insertion of paper in order to punch holes in said paper. Arms of the rings are open, thus causing hinge plates to pivot and thereby causing punches to pivot towards the hinge plate; this causes the head of the punch to penetrate openings in the hinge plate thereby punching holes in said paper insert in the opening.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,273,370 by Robert E. Bland, et al. entitled Hole Punching Device For A Ringed Notebook, a hole punching device for a ring note book utilizes the opening of arms of the rings to operate the punch member and a housing which moves downward in response to the opening of the ring, thus causing a portion of the punch to penetrate paper and a cutting hole in the platform on which the housing is mounted, the platform having an opening in which the paper is inserted for holes to be punched therein. Bland et al. further discloses a mechanism which does not require the arm to open or closed to operate the punch; this mechanism comprises a spring disposed between a hinge plate and a ledge of the platform. Holes are punched by the hole binder mechanism being pushed downward and the spring returns the binder mechanism to its upward position.